Posted Monday, April 24, 2006, The OG, news

Led by sophomore Alex Zhai, Uni math students placed sixth in their division at the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics state finals held Saturday at the Illini Union.

Zhai, who competed in the USA Mathematical Olympiad just a few days earlier, won first place individually in precalculus. He also won first place as a team member in three events: precalculus, freshman-sophomore eight-person team, and freshman-sophomore two-person team.

Fifty-six schools competed in the Division 3AA finals, which is intended for schools with enrollments of 1,000-1,999 students in grades 9-12. Uni, with an enrollment of 240, bypassed the smaller but less challenging 2A (400-999 students) and 1A (399 students or fewer) divisions.

Going up against schools that could draw from enrollments eight times its size, Uni finished with 673 points, behind Marist (697), Benet Academy (710), Libertyville (712), Fenwick (729), and champion Glenbard South (747).

The following Uni students won individual or team awards at the state finals:

Precalculus (individual)
• Alex Zhai — first place
• JohnMark Lau — seventh place

Precalculus (team) — first place
• Katie Carmody
• Colette DeJong
• Emily Floess
• JohnMark Lau
• Yuzuko Nakamura
• Alex Zhai

Freshman-sophomore eight-person team — first place
• Vaishnavi Giridaran

• Jie Han
• Jason He

• Nate Kim

• Joe Leigh

• Alan Liang
• Linda Song

• Alex Zhai

Freshman-sophomore two-person team — first place
• Ethan Berl

• Alex Zhai

Algebra 1 (team) — fifth place
• Vaishnavi Giridaran

• Nate Kim
• Alan Liang
• Allan Luo
• Cheng Luo
• Natsuki Nakamura

Algebra 2 (team) — sixth place
• Robert Boyce
• Ian Chen
• Luke Chiang
• Aria Collopy
• Annie Liang
• Chandra Pathuri

Calculator team — seventh place
• Ethan Berl
• Katie Carmody
• Ian Chen
• JohnMark Lau
• Cheng Luo

Math executive teacher Craig Russell is ICTM team sponsor.

— Gargoyle staff